What the army is doing is cleaning those areas, and the indication that the army is strong is that it's making advancement in that area. It never went to one area and couldn't enter to it - that's an indication. How could that army do that if it's a family army or a sect army ? What about the rest of the country who support the government ? It's not realistic, it doesn't happen. Otherwise, the whole country will collapse.

I think sadness prevails in Syria now. We don't feel anything else but sadness because we have this killing every day, whether with chemical or any other kind.

Fighting the terrorists in Syria is not only in the interest of Syria or the Syrian people; in the interest of the Middle East, of Europe itself - something that many officials in the West don't see or don't realize or don't acknowledge - and in the interest of the Russian people, because they have been facing terrorists for decades now.

You have to be very closely linked to the beliefs of the people. This is the core issue. When there is divergence between your policy and the people's beliefs and interests, you will have this vacuum that creates disturbance.

When you talk about cooperation, it means cooperation between two legal governments, not cooperation between foreign government and any faction within Syria.

Even a president makes mistakes.

We said [U.S] are going to be repercussions of the mistaken way of dealing with it, of treating the terrorism, but nobody expected 11th of September. So, you cannot expect. It is difficult for anyone to tell you what is going to happen. It's an area where everything is on the brink of explosion. You have to expect everything.